John Bednarski played 148 games with the Amerks, then spent the next 23 seasons in the booth.

John Bednarski dangled his share of participles during his 23 winters behind the mike as a radio and television analyst for the Rochester Americans.

A polished broadcaster he was not.

But his listeners and viewers never minded. They didn't tune in for a grammar lesson. They tuned in for strong hockey opinions, colorful yarns and the impassioned, often humorous debates between Bednarski and play-by-play man Don Stevens.

"The big thing about John is that he loved hockey and he loved the Amerks and he loved the people of Rochester," Stevens said. "And those things came through on every broadcast."

Before the Amerks face off against the Syracuse Crunch at 7:05 tonight at Blue Cross Arena, the organization for which Bednarski was a player, broadcaster and goodwill ambassador will return the love by inducting him into its Hall of Fame.

"I can't tell you what the honor means to me because of the respect I have for the Amerks organization and the city of Rochester," he said. "For a kid who grew up enduring those five-foot-high snowbanks and minus-30-degree temperatures in Winnipeg, Manitoba, for what seemed like eight months out of the year, this is a dream come true."

Bednarski, 54, came to Rochester for the first time during the fall of 1972 as one of five players loaned to the Amerks by the New York Rangers. The Amerks had just ended their working agreement with the Vancouver Canucks, and coach Don Cherry had to scramble to find players from various NHL franchises so Rochester could operate that season as an independent.

No one expected anything from that rag-tag squad, but the Amerks wound up surprising everyone by going 33-31-12 and making the American Hockey League playoffs.

"It's still the most enjoyable year I spent in hockey," said Bednarski, a 5-foot-10, 195-pound offensive-minded defenseman who had 14 goals and 24 assists during his rookie pro season. "Don Cherry instilled in each and every one of us the confidence that we could prove people wrong. It's funny, but we were like a bunch of castaways. We were like Gilligan's Island."

But unlike the people stranded on that deserted island in the popular 1960s sit-com, Bednarski didn't want to leave. He wound up making Rochester his home, even after his travels took him all over the hockey map.

Though he played 100 games in the NHL (99 with the Rangers and one with the Edmonton Oilers), Bednarski was a career minor-leaguer, four times earning AHL All-Star honors (twice with New Haven, twice with Providence).

He was overjoyed when he wound up back with the Amerks for the 1980-81 season.

"It wound up being an enjoyable year for me, but it didn't start out well because I didn't see eye-to-eye with Mike Keenan," Bednarski said. "See, I was a 30-year-old, know-it-all veteran and Mike was a young know-it-all coach who had just come up from juniors. But during that winter, my opinion about him changed completely. I found out he was ahead of his time on a lot of things. By the end of the year, I was saying to myself, 'If I had only played for him several years earlier, I might have had a longer NHL career.'"

Bednarski finished his playing career with the Erie Blades the next season after the Pittsburgh Penguins claimed his contract from the Buffalo Sabres. When Bednarski returned to Rochester in the spring of '82, Amerks play-by-play man Rick Peckham asked him if he would like to be his color man for one of the AHL playoff games.

"I said, 'Yes,' and one game wound up becoming 23 years," Bednarski said. "The pay in dollars ($50 a broadcast during his final seasons) wasn't great, but the experience was priceless in other ways."

His induction into the Amerks Hall tonight is primarily for his work as a broadcaster, but it also takes into account his brief Rochester playing career (17 goals and 42 assists in 148 games) and his charitable contributions.

The Bednarski Celebrity Golf Tournament became his pride and joy, raising more than $400,000 in 15 years for the local chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

"I remember when they asked me if I would lend my services and my name to the tournament," Bednarski said. "I told them as long as they didn't put the word 'memorial' at the end of it, I'm in."

His caring nature and sense of humor have made him a beloved figure among Amerks fans.

Through the years Bednarski developed a reputation for being a practical jokester. It was not uncommon for him to put shaving cream on the hands of sleeping teammates. When they awakened and rubbed their eyes with the stinging cream, they would start cursing Bednarski.

At least twice, current TV news anchor Rich Funke of WHEC (Channel 10) has fallen prey to Bednarski's good-natured shenanigans. The hockey analyst once put a dead catfish in the toilet of Funke's hotel room.

"He picks up the lid, and it almost scares the pants off him," Bednarski said, chuckling.

Another time, he hid a brick of stinky limburger cheese in Funke's Jaguar.

"I like to pull different tricks because I believe it lightens people up," Bednarski said. "I never do anything mean. It's just all a part of the camaraderie you have with people."

Bednarski said the year he spent playing for Cherry in Rochester and his first NHL game share the top spot on his list of hockey thrills.

"I was called up to the Rangers (in 1974), and we were playing the Bruins in Boston Garden, and I was so excited when I hit the ice, I could barely see," he said. "I wound up checking this guy behind our net, and I looked up and saw that it was the immortal Bobby Orr. I said, 'Geez, I'm sorry Mr. Orr." And he started laughing."

Laughter is a common sound when Bednarski is around. His sense of humor is one of the reasons he was able to hit it off with Stevens from the start.

"I told him that if he remembered I was always right, everything would be OK," Stevens joked. "And he said everything would be OK if I remembered that he was always right. I think that philosophy worked out well for both of us."

The father of three adult children, Bednarski recently remarried and relocated to a suburb of Charlotte, N.C. His work as a sales rep for two transportation companies brings him back to Rochester roughly once every two weeks. But he misses his broadcast work and the talks he had with fans, ushers and concessionaires on his way to and from the booth.

Tonight he'll undoubtedly have an opportunity to renew many of those old acquaintances. Proper grammar will be the last thing on anyone's mind during this festive evening.